


We can just kiss like real people do

by ChillMachineBroke



Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: ARFID, Anniversary, Anniversary dinner date, Autistic Will Schofield, Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Food Issues, M/M, Mentioned Lauri, More comfort than hurt, Shutdowns, Stimming, Tom Blake is an amazing boyfriend, Tom Blake loves Will Schofield, Will Schofield loves Tom Blake, Will has ARFID, a little bit of, acespec Will Schofield, demiromantic Will Schofield, internalized ableism, nose kisses, which almost becomes a meltdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:54:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27011569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChillMachineBroke/pseuds/ChillMachineBroke
Summary: Blakefield Kisstober 2020: Day 20 [Nose Kisses]Will is excited to go to dinner with Tom for their three month anniversary, but when Tom wants to go to a restaurant where Will won't be able to eat anything on the menu, and Will's plans to eat beforehand go up in smoke, he gets a little too overwhelmed.
Relationships: Tom Blake/William Schofield
Comments: 5
Kudos: 19
Collections: Blakefield Kisstober 2020





	We can just kiss like real people do

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be much shorter than it ended up being. There are some parts I'm super happy with and some parts I wish I'd had more time to work on, but overall I'm both relieved and overjoyed to be sharing this fic! I hope it's sufficient in the nose kisses department jgdjgdjgd. <3
> 
> This fic is dedicated to [badmeetsevil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/badmeetsevil), [fromthebeginningthen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fromthebeginningthen), [svladcjelli](https://archiveofourown.org/users/svladcjelli/pseuds/svladcjelli), and [Milothatches (WallyWasTaken )](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Milothatches/pseuds/Milothatches) this fic literally would not exist without you guys.
> 
> Title is from "Like Real People Do" by Hozier.

Will didn’t particularly enjoy the physical act of eating, but he loved the taste. Well, specific tastes at least.

Which had been a very nerve wracking thing to explain to Tom when they had first started dating. So nerve wracking, that he had avoided the topic entirely. He wasn’t being intentionally dishonest, he was simply too embarrassed.

But, there were only so many times he could quietly make sure they went to a restaurant that would have food he’d be able to eat before his luck ran out. He couldn’t save himself the embarrassment of ordering an entire appetizer and nothing else, but at least he had food, and Tom was never rude about Will’s choice of dinner. He never commented aside from saying it looked good or asking for a small bite of it. He never even asked for more than a bite because he silently recognized that Will had, as Will’s mother used to put it, “a thing” about food, and didn’t want to push or take too much of Will’s typically smaller than a real entree portion.

Will and Tom had been casually acquainted through mutual friends before Lauri had essentially dragged Will over to Tom at a friendly gathering and asked Tom out for Will.

As embarrassed as Will had been at the time, in hindsight, he had to admit that Lauri had done him a favor. He planned on giving her a small gift on his and Tom’s one year anniversary.

The issue was that, in their time of casual acquaintanceship, Will had usually managed to avoid eating around Tom. He tended to avoid eating around anyone he didn’t know well if he could help it.

Sadly, it was damn near impossible to avoid eating in front of someone on a date. It was only a matter of time before Tom caught on.

Will's luck ran out with the approach of their three month anniversary.

Tom suggested somewhere fancy.

The first red flag was that the name of the place was in French. Then, Will found the menu online, which only confirmed his fears; it had nothing for him. Except for the dessert menu, but he wasn’t going to get dinner off a dessert menu.

He intended to go on the date anyway, because Tom was worth it. He planned to eat something before the date, nothing too big, but enough that he could say he wasn’t hungry and have it be true, even if it had to be an incomplete truth. Then maybe he and Tom could split a dessert for the sake of the special occasion.

But it would seem the universe, or at least the professor he TAed for, had other plans. He'd gotten home late from the university, and the stress of getting ready coupled with not having enough time to get ready the way he wanted, made him sick to his stomach. Eating before the date became out of the question. He felt hungry but he knew he wouldn't be able to bring himself to eat, no matter how quick he could prepare it, so instead he focused on getting ready and then immediately left for the date.

Seeing Tom made him feel marginally better.

Seeing Tom always made him feel at least a little better.

The date was going nicely; Will was listening to Tom talk about his day which always made him feel at ease. But the calm came crashing down when the waiter came to take their order. All of Will’s earlier stress came rushing back.

The waiter turned to Will first.

Of course they did.

Will froze. He tried to speak, to say anything other than stare dumbly at the wall over the waiter's shoulder, but all he could muster was the beginning of a whine in the back of his throat which he did his best to stifle. He was not going to start whining. The last thing he needed was people staring when he felt like this.

"Can we get some more time actually? I'm still deciding, everything looks so good," Tom said. Will's eyes darted to him. Tom smiled up at the waiter, charming as ever, as if Will wasn't on the edge of a meltdown.

The waiter nodded, spared another glance at Will, and then left. Tom dropped the tension in his shoulders with a sigh of relief, Will didn't. Tom turned to Will, eyes brimming with concern.

"You okay, love? No that's a silly question, I can see that you're not. What's wrong, darling?" Tom spoke quickly, dropping his voice since he knew Will had sensitive ears, especially when he was upset. The words got a bit jumbled in Will's head and he had to replay the last few seconds to process what Tom said. The jumbled background noise from other people's conversations was only making things harder. Tom was patient while he waited for Will to piece together a response.

"Can't eat," Will had to force the words out. Tom furrowed his brow which meant he was probably confused, so Will forced himself to elaborate, "I can't eat."

"Why not? What's the matter, dear, did something happen today?"

Will shakes his head, slightly frustrated. He didn't want to be here anymore and it was becoming increasingly difficult to hold himself still. "I can't eat, but I'm hungry but there's nothing here for me. I'm sorry."

"Will, sweetheart, we can leave." There it was, Will had ruined Tom's plans. "How about we go to my car so we can talk with a bit of privacy and then discuss plans for the rest of the night? Plans where we can both eat. Does that sound okay?"

Will didn't know how he expected Tom to respond and it certainly hadn't been that, but as always, Tom found a way to surprise him.

"Yes, please," Will whispered as he started tapping his thumb against each of his fingers in turn. Pointer, middle, ring, pinky, pinky, ring, middle, pointer, pointer, middle, ring, pinky, repeat.

Tom stood up and waited for Will to follow suit and let Will leave in front of him. Will still turned back to visually check every inch above and below the table before he would take more than a few steps away. He didn’t want to forget anything. Tom waited patiently and when Will finally stepped away, Tom made sure to stay noticeably close behind him because there was only enough room to walk single file as they left. Will told Tom once that he didn’t like the feeling of his back being unguarded when he was on the edge of a meltdown. Tom had taken it to heart apparently, and if Will weren’t working so hard to hold himself together at that moment, he might have registered that the action was deliberate and been grateful.

Tom stopped by the hostess to offer his apologies and release the reservation on their table for any potential walk-ins.

As they stepped outside, Tom started to walk beside, not behind, Will and asked, “Can I touch you?”

After a few seconds processing delay, Will nodded, staring straight ahead. It hadn't escaped Tom's notice that Will's hands had been moving since before they left the restaurant. He was cycling through stims, looking for one that felt satisfying enough to help him calm down, but was subtle enough that people wouldn't notice it. None of them were helping, he needed to pace around and flail his hands, not keep them locked at his side, spending all of his energy to mask and redirect. Being crushed under a weighted blanket would also help, but that wouldn't be an option for a while.

Tom wrapped his arm around Will’s waist and pulled him against his side. Tom’s touch was wonderfully solid, the closest he'd be able to get to the full body pressure he needed until he could get home.

Tom had been so understanding when Will had explained when and how he needed to be touched. Will's best case scenario going into the conversation had been "hopefully he won't be offended when I explain that I won't always be comfortable being touched by him." Tom was tactile, touch was clearly integral to how he showed affection, the possibility of him not understanding Will's touch needs was a reasonable worry to have. But, Tom far exceeded Will's "best case scenario". He listened, he never took offense, never got angry, and he asked questions to make sure he understood as clearly as possible. He made an effort. Will wasn't used to that with romantic partners (although to be fair, his romantic experience was extremely limited).

Will was still lost in his own head, but with Tom's arm around him, his thoughts held their shape rather than passing like smoke through his fingers. His thoughts were still too fast, impossible to hold onto a single thread, but they were words at least, a substantial improvement from the feeling of crashing pots and pans together he had earlier.

When they finally got to Tom's car, Tom opened the door for Will before going around to sit behind the wheel.

"Can you talk to me yet?" Tom asked. Will shook his head. His processing delay was getting shorter which was a good sign. "Do you want any contact?"

"Hand… please," Will answered. The please had almost been an afterthought but he didn't want to upset Tom by coming across as demanding.

"Of course, darling." Tom let his hand rest, palm up, loosely on the console between them, giving Will complete freedom to move it to wherever he wanted it.

Will overlapped as much of their arms as possible, laced their fingers together, and squeezed. Tom squeezed back.

They sat in quiet for a while; Tom waited patiently for Will to collect himself.

When he was ready, Will said, "Thank you, I'm sorry I messed up your plans."

Tom furrowed his brow and said, "You didn't mess anything up darling, I don't care where we go or what we eat for dinner, all I care about is spending tonight with you. It's our anniversary, bub, we both deserve a chance to enjoy it. Can you tell me what happened though? I want to be able to help sooner if it ever happens again, I hate seeing you get so upset."

"I can usually handle things by myself so that doesn't happen. It shouldn't have happened tonight, but I got held up at school. I didn't want you to see that."

"Will, it's okay if you're not ready to talk about it, but please don't feel like you have to handle it alone. I love you, I want to support you, I want to be able to help prevent you from having a shutdown in a restaurant. Not because I'm embarrassed by it, but because I know how much they take out of you and I know how long it can take you to recover. I'm starting to think you've been trying to spare me from seeing the full picture. Do you think I don't notice when you're masking around me? Please know that you don't have to. I would never ask you to, in fact, I don't want you to. I love you and I want to know all of you, Will. And if you do let me see you, I promise I won't be going anywhere. So, if you're ready to tell me, I would like to know what happened tonight."

The swell of love he felt as he took in the full weight of Tom's words was almost overwhelming. Will pursed his lips as though he were preparing for a kiss and pressed the back of his hand against his lips. Will breathed through his nose and let himself feel the pressure against his lips. He had been too afraid to hope that Tom would so plainly accept all of Will like that. He hadn't realized how much he wanted to hear Tom say that until this moment. He knew Tom might not feel the same way once he was faced with the reality of it all, but it was easy to believe Tom because Tom never broke a promise if he could help it. At the very least, he knew Tom would try his best, and that was already more than Will could ever ask of him.

When the overwhelm passed and Will lowered his hand again, Tom asked, "Was that a stim?"

Will nodded his head in response.

"What emotion is it for? I don't think I've ever seen you do that one around me before."

"That's because I usually only do it when we're texting or talking on the phone."

"That makes sense," Tom said, "But why do you only do it then?"

"Oh… because I only do it when I really want to kiss you and can't for whatever reason," Will answered sheepishly. "So I do it when we're texting because I can't touch you."

Tom was quiet for a moment before he said, "Well, you can kiss me right now. Or just do the stim against my face, I don't mind; who knows it might actually be kinda nice."

Will's eyes widened a bit as a blush rose on his cheeks. "I-It's not exactly a kiss though… It's like the mouth shape of a kiss but I don't move my lips and I'm pressing really hard. It wouldn't be comfortable for you."

"I don't think I'll mind the pressure. If you want to try it, I'm more than willing to take it."

"Are you sure?"

"When it comes to you, always."

That made Will's heart skip a beat. Will shifted in his seat to better face Tom and leaned across the center console as he took Tom's face in his hands. Tom's hands came up to hold Will's in place. Will leaned forward until their lips were pressed together.

By ordinary kissing standards, Will doubted this could even be considered a closed mouth kiss, they didn't move, just stayed pressed against each other. To anyone else they probably looked quite odd, but kiss or not, Will thought it was perfect.

When Will pulled back Tom was beaming. "That was really nice, Will."

"Yeah, it was," Will replied, breathless.

"You feeling better?"

Will nodded.

"If you're ready, can you please tell me what happened tonight? Why couldn't you eat?"

A little bit of the tension returned to Will's shoulders and he visibly swallowed. "It's complicated. I can tell you... but it's complicated."

"That's okay, darling, take all the time you need. I can't think of any place I'd rather be."

"Okay," Will took a deep breath, "I have this thing when it comes to food; I'm basically an extremely picky eater. The proper name for it is ARFID, which stands for Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder," Will explained. "I have things I eat and things I won't and it's possible for me to try something new, but only if I choose to try it, and even then I have to sort of psyche myself up to it. If I'm forced to eat something I don't want to, I'll throw up."

"I would never force you to eat something," Tom said.

Will gave a small smile and said, "I know you wouldn't, I'm just trying to make sure I say all the important stuff. My parents used to try to force me to eat stuff sometimes when I was little. My mom literally twisted my arm one time. But I know you wouldn't do that."

Will didn't seem very phased by what he'd said, but Tom's jaw was hanging open. "They had no right to do that, Will!" Tom baulked.

Will winced at the increase in volume. "Are you upset?" he asked, "You raised your voice."

Tom's face softened and when he spoke again, his voice was quieter, "I'm upset that your parents hurt you to try to force you to eat things you didn't want to eat, but I'm not upset with you. I will never be upset with you for not wanting to eat something, for not being able to eat something."

"That's a relief, thank you. And my parents didn't understand, they didn't have a way to. Besides, as I got older they eventually stopped trying to force me as often."

"That doesn't mean it was ever okay to treat you like that, baby. The science might not have been there for them to understand you, but they could have listened to you regardless and responded with compassion. Nothing excuses hurting you to force you to do something you didn't want to, just because they expected it of you."

Will considered that for a moment. "I suppose you're right," he conceded. "I've been trying to get better about excusing the way they reacted to 'me being difficult', their words, not mine, which I know I shouldn't do as much as I do. I'm learning that it wasn't okay, but it takes time."

"Take all the time you need, bub, I'm proud of you for realizing that what they did was wrong." Tom held his hand out again which Will gratefully accepted. "Is this why you usually only eat an appetizer on our dates?"

"Yeah." Will busied himself playing with the rings on Tom's fingers as he often did when he was nervous or tired or bored or excited, or really, just anytime they were together. "I don't eat meat or most vegetables so my options are pretty limited with entrees usually."

"Was there nothing on the menu for you tonight?"

Will shook his head, "No. I even checked ahead of time, like I always do, but there wasn't anything. I was going to eat something before I came here tonight, but Professor Mackenzie made me stay late to take care of something and I ended up not having enough time to eat."

"Darling, I don't want you to have to eat before a date just to be able to eat dinner that night."

"It's not a big deal, I've always eaten ahead of time if I'm not sure I'll be able to eat somewhere. Things just didn't go as planned tonight."

"I'm saying that I don't want you to have to feel that extra stress before a date, sweetheart. You can tell me if you can't eat somewhere, and we'll find someplace else that we can both enjoy. Why didn't you say something about tonight sooner?"

"You seemed excited to eat here, I wanted you to be able to enjoy yourself tonight."

"I was excited for our anniversary and excited for the opportunity to spend more months with you. That would have been true at any restaurant. I wanted you to enjoy tonight too you silly goose." Tom shook his head with a smile.

"Oh… that makes sense. Sorry for letting things get so out of hand then."

"It's okay, angel. I'm at least glad we got the chance to talk about this." Tom lifted Will's hand to his lips and placed a kiss to its back.

Will's stomach chose that moment to growl which made Tom chuckle. He raised his head to look at Will again with a warm smile. "Do you want to try our anniversary dinner again? Maybe this time you pick the restaurant, anywhere you want, we order to-go, and then we take it back to your place and we watch an episode of _M*A*S*H_ while we eat and cuddle on the couch. You like to watch that show after meltdowns and shutdowns, right? I'm sure I remember you saying that. Or am I thinking of _Community_?"

"It's both, but tonight is a _M*A*S*H_ night. That sounds really, really nice. Can we go somewhere with mozzarella sticks?"

"Of course we can, love. We can go anywhere you'd like."

Will's face broke into a grin and he started patting his hand against his thigh and bouncing his leg.

"You feeling better, teddy bear?"

"Yeah," Will's smile shone in his eyes, "I'm still going to be a little out of it for a while and I'm probably going to fall asleep early, but I feel much better. Thank you for helping me tonight."

"Of course, Will, anything for you." Tom looked over at Will who was fluttering with motion as he looked out the windshield. The sight made his heart swell; it was moments like these that made him even more certain that he would be content to spend the rest of his life with Will. "Can I kiss you?" Tom asked, almost breathless.

"Where? I don't really feel like mouth kissing right now."

"That's okay, how about a kiss on your nose?"

"Oh, yes please!"

Tom chuckled and took Will's chin in his hand to turn him so they were facing each other. With the console in the way, it was a bit of a reach, but Tom managed. He could be quite determined when he put his mind to something. He placed a careful kiss to the tip of Will's nose.

Will giggled in response and Tom was sure he could get drunk off that sound.

"Can I kiss you back? The same way?" Will asked when Tom pulled away.

Tom nodded, "Absolutely!"

Will leaned down and put a quick peck on the tip of Tom's nose. He started to lean back but decided he wasn't done and dipped forward again to steal another three kisses up the bridge of Tom's nose, finishing right between Tom's eyes. Will always liked to do things in sets of four wherever he could.

Tom was delighted and let slip a giggle of his own.

After he caught his breath, he asked, "What do you say we get going? I'm starving."

"I'd like that," Will answered, smiling back just as big.

Tom fished his keys out of his pocket and started the car. He stole one more glance at Will before he started driving. Will was already back to idly fluttering his hand and looking out the windshield.

Tom had had a feeling tonight would be a good night; he was glad he'd been right.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to give a shout out to lovely people in the Second Devon's Discord server which can be joined [here](https://discord.gg/pa2w4hT). You guys are amazing and I probably would have lost interest in this movie ages ago without y'all, but instead I'm finally publishing my first fanfic.
> 
> You can also find me on Tumblr as [@chillmachinebroke](https://chillmachinebroke.tumblr.com/).


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